


Falling On My Face For You

by notoriousjae



Series: Marshfield Drabbles [4]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Platonic Soulmates, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:02:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5651779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notoriousjae/pseuds/notoriousjae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s two kinds of soulmates in the world and Max Caulfield never understands why Chloe Price isn’t both of them.  Until she meets Kate Marsh. Marshfield Soulmate AU.  Part of a series of Marshfield prompts (ranging from cute to cuter) that turned into drabbles. (G for Jesus?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling On My Face For You

**Author's Note:**

> A bunch of people have sent in Marshfield drabbles to my [Tumblr](http://begonefoulsoftdrink.tumblr.com/ask), so I figured I might as well post them here. Just because.
> 
>  **Prompt:** _“Can you write a Marshfield drabble Soulmate AU where their chests glow bright red when they meet their soulmate?”_. 
> 
> I might’ve taken this and ran with it. Marshfield all up in dis despite the spurts of pricefield (and slightly painful Amberprice). Also you all know I’m literally drunk while writing all of these, right?

****There’s two kinds of soulmates in the world and Max Caulfield never understands why Chloe Price isn’t both of them.

The first day she meets Chloe, snow staining blonde hair like a melting icepop in the middle of the road, she fell in love with her. Not in a totally cheesy, Romeo + Juliet ‘I want to marry you’ kind of way, but in a ‘I want to follow you to the end of the Earth’ kind of way, and they knew it the moment their wrists flashed like a tied red string that they’d be stuck together. Not that they needed their pulses to tell them that.

They would’ve stuck together, anyways.

But maybe both of them expect it to be each other, anyways. They heard stories all their life about people making it work without their hearts flashing red. They heard stories of people who lost their soulmate and finding someone. They’ve heard of best friends whose wrists flashed finding their chests flashing, one day, too, because maybe love wasn’t that simple. Maybe soulmates weren’t real.

Maybe Chloe ranting about soulmates all the time and the ‘shitty system’ was getting to Max every day and she _wished it was Chloe._

But it never was.

When Chloe meets Rachel Amber and her heart flashes so red it’s like a super nova, both of them look stunned before Max has to physically push her friend over to meet her, the taller girl nervously stubbing out her cigarette with a sarcastic joke and licked lips.

There’s soul mates and then there’s _soulmates_ and Chloe isn’t the whole package, not for Max, but maybe she doesn’t have to be. But maybe if Chloe isn’t it, there isn’t anyone out there for her, at all. Or maybe there is.

Or maybe Max will just spend her whole life taking pictures of Chloe and Rachel in corners with snow in their hair as she looks out towards the white void around her.

“Why don’t you think it was us?” Max asks Chloe, one day, both of them lounging in beat up sheets in the back of her pick-up truck, watching the way her best friend’s cigarette paints mist in the sky.

“Because some people are more important than soulmates and shit, Max.” Chloe shrugs, their shoulders settling together, and she smiles at her. “Till the end, anyways, right?” She holds up her hand and Max grabs it. 

“Till the end.”

\--

The snow’s melted and Max’s packing her car up when it happens.

They’re moving down the block--Chloe and Rachel and Max’s lives all packed in boxes. Brown little containers full of stuff and clothes and so many headshots of Rachel that Max’s pretty sure _she_ should be carrying them because so not her fault--and she’s trying to be a little proactive by filling up Chloe’s rusted-out truck. They’re inside still packing and Max is bundled from head to toe, two scarves wrapped firmly around her neck and a black beanie shoved on her head, when she hears a faint noise down the corner.

It’s not snowing, anymore, but the roads are iced over and slippery and when Max looks up, bundled like a raider in _fallout_ , she spots this blonde bundled blob skidding a little and tripping on ice, dropping her own box of belongings. Hands set down the raggedy box of photos to go help her, skidding a little herself on the asphalt of ice, crossing the street to help her pick up scattered pieces of paper that are quickly staining themselves with water…

...only to trip on the ice, herself, and slam her head into a nearby street sign, stumbling and landing face-first in melted, dark snow.

“Ow--fu--”

There’s a gasp of a noise, and maybe a startled, faint muted laugh as Max flops over onto her back, blearily blinking up at the sight of the person that leans over her. She misses the faint glow of red underneath a good three layers of jackets, but when she looks up at the swimming image of an angel above her, Max faintly thinks the girl looks like an angel. She’s highlighted by streetlights and falling snow--when did it start snowing, again?--in a messy blonde bun, hazel eyes wide and...beautiful. Beautiful in more than just a pretty kind of way. Beautiful in the kind of way where Max wishes she could see a little more clearly because she wants a _picture_ kind of way.

“Are you alright?” She asks above her, immediately moving to help move Max’s head to her lap, looking her over for blood.

Maybe she can find her ego somewhere trickling out of the side of her head, too. Oh well, once a klutz, always a klutz.

“Uh...yeah.” She laughs a little and then winces at the motion, hand shooting up to the bump on her hand with a sheepish smile. The girl smiles back and Max shrugs a shoulder.

“I was, uh...trying to help.”

“Well I think you made a pretty valiant effort.” And hazel eyes are light--nearly dancing--then. Warm. Warm like her chest is, right now. She doesn’t even think to look down, doesn’t even think to check, too busy feeling gentle fingers brush the hair from her eyes and tend to the small bump.

“Thanks.” Max catches her wrist to help ease the girl’s worry, “I’m alright. I’ve taken worse head-dives at a mosh pit. And that…” She shakes her head, “Was a bad joke. Come on, let’s get those back in your box before they--”

“Oh.” The girl sounds like she just remembers the spilled papers, herself, immediately moving to help Max scramble to pick it off the ground. “Dang. Thank you. I feel like such a klutz--”

“Remember the part where I just face-planted into the pole?” The brunette quips, grabbing the last of the papers and offering it to the stranger, “Yours wasn’t that bad.”

“Well, still, you were trying to help, so...thank you. It was radically cool of you.”

“It’s alright. What, uh--” She rubs at her forehead, handing her the last of the pages, missing the way the girl’s fingers are resting over her heart, looking so curiously at Max before she shakes her head, looking so small bundled up in just as many sweaters as Max is. “What are these, anyways?”

“Oh, they’re,” Is that a hint of a blush? “They’re just drawings. I’m working on something. It’s small. Just a...a kid’s book.”

“Really? That’s awesome.” Max sits down on her rear, knees bundling up to her chest now that the box is full, turning over the page the girl hands her, blinking down at it. “Wow, this is...this is really good.” And it actually is. It’s not the awkward kind of thing you say to a person that _expects_ you to say it. The girl’s actually obviously crazy talented and Max traces gloves along lines of water color and happy pictures.

“You don’t have to--”

“No, really.” Max looks up at her. “These are... _really_ good.”

“Oh.” The girl’s smile is even more beautiful than the swimming version of her eyes was. It lights up the whole city like a roman candle and Max’s mouth is a little dry. “Thank you.”

And now they’re just sitting here on the ground in the snow with one half-opened box next to their hips and Max’s packed box on a truck bed down the street, and Max isn’t sure why she doesn’t want her to go. Not yet.

“I’d offer to...get you coffee, or something, for helping me, but, I’m kind of moving.”

“Really?” Max laughs, “Me too.”

“Really?” Hazel eyes blink and warm fingers reach up to grab that cross and the brunette wonders if this girl believes in coincidences. Wonders if she’s one of those Christians that doesn’t believe in soulmates, at all. Or does with every breath they have.

“Yeah, right down the street.”

“No way.” The Girl (Max is starting to capitalize it in her head) reaches up and grabs Max’s wrist, both of their hands wet from the snow, covered in gloves and fabric. “That’s crazy. You don’t happen to know where 1101 Arcadian is, do you? I’m new to this city and my phone got me a little lost.”

“Yeah. It’s down the street. You’re not too far from it. Do you have your car? Why don’t I--here, come on, me and my roommates were just loading up the truck to take it down there. Why don’t you come on up for some coffee, or--shoot, we packed all the coffee.”

“Do you like tea?” The Girl holds up a slightly-soggy box within the box, eyes light, looking a little relieved. A little hopeful. She shuffles to stand and offers Max her free hand. Max takes it, The Girl laughing a little at the small bump, fingers gingerly brushing along it in a way that makes her shift.

“I love tea.” Max smiles.

“I’m Kate.” The girl finally greets, smile as kind as her eyes, and the glint off the cross around her neck catches in the streetlights.

The Girl is Kate.

Max takes her hand and guides her back towards the way she came from, to an apartment that only holds one and two soulmates and a busted coffee maker that they still have to box up.

“I’m Max.”

\--

Kate winds up helping them pack up the rest of their apartment and she learns that Kate’s laugh sounds best accompanied with hot tea and the sound of scratching, stretching packing tape. Chloe tugs her out of the room to help patch up her war-wound and Max scratches at her warm chest, blinking at the faint glowing warmth that she catches out of the corner of the mirror when she changes shirts. It’s gotta be a trick of the light, or something, or maybe she just has a concussion, but she finds herself leaning on the edge of the doorway when she hears the tail end of Kate and Rachel’s conversation.

Kate’s back is to her--Kate _Marsh_ , she learned all of five minutes prior--but there’s something a little weird about the way Rachel’s hand reaches up and splays right above the girl’s heart. When she walks out, Rach snaps her hand back like she’s touched a stove (though she’s sort of _smirking_ ) and Kate The Girl Marsh tugs her jacket a little tighter around her chest and clears her throat.

“Kate was just telling me how you tripped on her face to save her pictures.” Rachel is still smirking and Max doesn’t get it, eyes flicking from Kate’s heart up to familiar dark eyes, mouth opening before a voice cuts her off down the hall--

“Like a pro, Max!” Chloe’s disembodied, ever-encouraging voice floats from the hall to right next to her ear, warm arm wrapping around her shoulder and tugging her close.

“I thought it was heroic.” Kate pipes up, eyes still kind and Max smiles at her before plopping down next to her, handing her a kind of lukewarm cup of tea, missing the way Rachel gestures to Chloe or the way Kate’s nose ducks.

They wind up helping Kate move the rest of her stuff, too, because she lives a little down the block from them, anyways, and Max thinks it’s a little funny how life works out. How both of them being a klutz lead to them being friends, at all.  

Chloe makes fun of her for tripping on her face when she meets Kate for the rest of their lives, but at least she only pokes the bruise everytime she’s bored for, like, a week tops.

At first, they get lunch every once in a while and Max learns that Kate can really _really_ draw and write and play violin, too, and she just happens to run into her, sometimes, anyways. Eventually, Max...might intentionally accidentally run into her. A lot.

(In a totally not-creepy way, she swears).

And she learns that Kate has a family far away and a mother who she smiles about but is a little too over-bearing and a father who’s _good_ and that Kate doesn’t force anything on anyone but let’s people too close. She learns that Kate holds her cross during scary movies or buries her nose in Max’s shoulder during jump scares. She learns what Kate looks like with her hair not in a bun and how she sticks her tongue a little out of the corner of her mouth when she plays video games.

Max learns what it’s like to forget about the whole _heart lighting up for your soulmate_ thing and learns what it’s like for her life to be a little bit brighter, instead. Eventually, Kate is hanging out with all of them, more often than not, and the trio becomes...whatever the 4-person version of a trio is.

It’s a nice reprieve, considering the fact that things get worse than better between Chloe and Rachel and, eventually, the quatro becomes a trio when Rachel is off to California, and anytime soulmates comes up during _that_ around Chloe, is painfully awkward.

“I...think God put people in our lives for a reason.” Kate pipes up from the corner and there’s something in her eyes when she says it--something in the way her eyes linger on the edge of Max’s jaw--something in the way her smile barely tips up before she looks at Chloe, genuinely trying to make her feel better, because that’s what Kate does.

“Well, God’s shit.” Is all Chloe says, arms crossed as she looks out the diner window, arms crossed and a piece of bacon hanging from her mouth like a cigarette. “Soulmates are just...it’s a load of shit, okay?”

“Well, hey, you’ve got one soulmate over here that isn’t going anywhere.” Max promises and misses the faint, pained look on Kate’s face from the corner of her eye--misses the way Kate looks away from them as Chloe leans across the table to kiss her forehead in a shameless display of thanks.

“I’d like to see you try, Caulfield.”

She doesn’t try, but Rachel doesn’t come back, either. Not like she was, before, and it sucks to watch Chloe go through it. It sucks to watch her best friend lose who she thought was going to be her forever. It sucks to watch Chloe hurt, at all, and no matter how old they get, they wind up back in that truck bed, just drinking, this time, and Max ignores the tear tracks on familiar cheeks.

“It’s just...it’s just shit, Max.” There’s no jokes or teasing tones, just them out here in the middle of summer. “I thought it was forever, you know? And everyone always fucking...” The rumble of her voice is strangled and their fingers tangled. It’d be a good punk girl song if it didn’t hurt to watch Chloe like this so much. “She was supposed to stick around. Love me back. I thought that’s what it meant.”  

“I...I’m sorry, Chlo.” Max murmurs because she doesn’t know what else to say. So she holds her, instead, and it’s easier, like this, to forget about the burn in her own chest. About what she’d noticed a few weeks before, anytime she looked at Kate. The faint red light in her own chest that’s petrifying and beautiful and warm.

She wishes it was Chloe. She wishes it was Chloe, because what if Kate’s her Rachel? What if Kate’s heart never glows?

What if Kate doesn’t always love her back?

\--

Max always laughs when Kate’s around. Max always takes pictures when Kate’s around. Max feels like she can be herself around Max like she can around Chloe and she wonders if her heart did this when they first met or if she grew into it. She wonders if Kate’s heart did this and she missed it because she was too busy slamming her face against a pole to see it.

She wonders if, when Kate brushes the hair out of her eyes and kisses a bump that hasn’t existed for years, if she can feel it. Kate calls her fearless, sometimes, but she doesn’t feel that way.

They’re asleep on the couch, Kate laying on top of her, when Chloe pushes into the apartment, tugging off a hat and a scarf and gloves and tucking them on the entryway. There’s a blanket thrown haphazardly over half of them and Max wipes at her eyes to lean up, not moving too much in fear of jostling the blonde. She catches Chloe looking at them with a look in blue eyes and cocks her head.

“What?” She mouths.

“Nothing.” Chloe murmurs, “You ready for dinner?”

“Oh. Oh, shit, Chlo, I completely forgot, let me just--”

It takes a lot of effort to slide out from Kate because she’s sort of like a clinging spider monkey when she sleeps, but she eventually manages, the other Girl (still capitalized, sometimes, in her head) shifting into the couch like she’s trying to snuggle back into warmth. A second later she’s changing, arms hanging uselessly by her side, staring at the burning red mark in her chest. Not on it. In it. Her wrist burns warmth everytime Chloe comes near and her chest does _this_ everytime Kate is nearby and there’s no denying it, anymore.

Chloe bursts into her room to use her bathroom, about to flop onto the bed when she pauses at the sight of Max in front of the mirror.

“You--oh shit.”

Max turns towards her with wide eyes, maybe a little scared, and doesn’t even bother to cover it because it’s Chloe. It’s Chloe and maybe they don’t talk about _her_ soulmate since Rachel left, but Max is starting to feel a little screwed.

Chloe drops the piece of paper she was holding and Max is just glad she comes closer sooner rather than later, showcasing the angry, vibrant, loving stain inside her chest.

“Oh shit.” Chloe says again.

“I know.” Max groans, hands pushing through her hair.

“Who-- _Kate_? Kate. Oh my God, it’s Kate.” Chloe walks up behind her, hands settling on smaller shoulders. “Shit. I didn’t know you-- _Shit._ ”

“Stop saying that.” She turns around and buries her face in Chloe’s neck. “I don’t even know if she--”

“She’s got to.” Chloe can always read her mind.

“Some people don’t.” Max argues, voice muffled from familiar skin, hands cupping her shoulders, face scrunching up. All she can think about is the way Kate settles against her chest. The way Kate listens to Chloe when she talks and is always patient and kind and...shit. Shit, shit, shit. “What if she’s Rachel? I know it’s crap to say but I mean, Kate’s...Kate’s _Kate_ and I’m--I’m nobody.”

“Hey, you’re not nobody.” Chloe pulls back, cupping her cheeks and Max is, for the first time in her life, glad that Chloe was the first kind of soulmate. The one that burned into her wrist. “You’re Maxine fucking Caulfield.”

“But I’m--”

“Hey, no. No way. You’re not pulling this shit. Have you seen the way Kate looks at you? Screw this soulmate thing. Who cares? So what Rachel’s in California, Kate’s not Rachel--and you’re--”

“I’m nobody.” Max repeats.

“You’re Max. You’re the best person I know. You shoved me towards Rachel years ago, remember? And, yeah, it sucks now, but I wouldn’t have traded that for anything, you know? And it’s time you stop hiding behind me because, seriously, you guys have been _not_ beating the bush for years, and just go out there and get the girl.”

“But I--”

“No asses or butts. I double dog dare you.”

“Chloe.” Max gives her a dead-pan look. “This is sort of beyond the double-dog dare--”

“Max.” Her voice is softer, leaning forward to gently kiss her forehead like Kate does, sometimes, over a bump no one else can see. “It’s about time you admit that when it comes to the soulmate thing between _us_ \--”

“--oh.”

And that’s when Max realizes that Chloe never closed the door, because they pull enough apart to see Kate staring at them with wide-- _wide_ \--eyes.

“Kate?” Max asks.

“Shit.” Chloe breathes.

“Oh, God.” Kate responds--

And it takes a second for it to register. For Max to realize that her life has apparently become a situational comedy because of how this must _look_. Because the girl she’s soulmates with just pushed open the door to see her kind of nearly shirtless with a soulmate-mark burning being kind of--oh, shit--kind of _kissed_ by the girl she’s not _that_ kind of soulmates with and--

“Kate.” Max realizes, immediately pulling away, holding up the hand like she’s trying to get her to stop, shirt uselessly hanging from her palm.

“Shit.” Chloe says a little louder.

“Oh, God.” Kate’s hand is covering her mouth and she’s stepping away. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were--I should--” And she’s stuttering. Kate never stutters unless she’s nervous or--or _something_ \--and Max really, really wishes she never moved off the couch.

“Okay, this is so not what this looks like.” Max waves the shirt--

“Definitely not what it looks like.” Chloe agrees, also holding up a hand--

“Of course not.” But Kate’s still backpedaling towards the door. “I--” And she’s turning around, twisting on her heel, heading towards the apartment door, “--Excuse me. I’ll, um--later, Max.”

The front door slams.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” It’s barely a whisper, both of them looking towards the door, and after a few seconds of Kate being gone, her heart fades in color. “That did not just--”

“Complain about your life later, Max, right now man up and go get the girl.”

Chloe shoves her towards the door and Max is stumbling towards it, running after her, before she can think twice.

And if she maybe repeatedly whispers _this is so not cool this is so not cool this is so not cool_ the entire time, she never brings that up to either Chloe or Kate ever again.

...

Okay, so it’s the second time that Max is skidding down this same street towards The Girl who thoughtlessly changed her life but this time she’s freezing cold because she’s trying to tug her shirt back down her head while she runs, skidding on ice, and it’s not _nearly_ as graceful as the movies.

Because she can’t see where she’s going because her shirt is stuck over her head and she nearly trips over the edge of the sidewalk and it’s _Kate_ who catches her before she can fall down, familiar fingers tugging down the hem of her shirt, sunlight emerging through thin cotton to see hazel eyes highlighted by tears.

“Max!” Kate snaps and she never sounds so chiding. So frustrated. So hurt. But she’s still trying to help her tug the shirt down her head, anyways, because that’s just who Kate is. Kate’s a whirl of life and emotion and kindness all fluffed up in a bun on the top of her head and Max is _so screwed._ “What in the world are you doing?”

“I don’t know!” Max admits, freezing and struggling to get her head the rest of the way through the hole, both of her arms eventually making it through to freedom so that Kate can tug it down, “Chloe told me to go after you and I was kind of freaking out and--”

“And so you ran out into the middle of the street shirtless--”

“Yeah, I’m rethinking that part.” Max catches Kate’s hand from adjusting her shirt.

“You have my phone number.” Dark eyes are looking down at the street and Max’s fingers itch to hook up her chin.

“I don’t really know how to have this conversation.” It’s a dry admittance and it doesn’t matter that they’ve been friends for long enough to where it shouldn’t matter, because it all feels so heavy. So real. Like soulmates aren’t just myths or like maybe Max isn’t _supposed_ to be on the outside, looking in.

Like maybe Kate--

Maybe _Kate_ \--

“I get it, Max.” Kate’s voice is quiet and she shifts, eyes searching the ground for a few moments before she looks up, “You don’t have to explain anything. I know you love Chloe. I can see it in the way you look at her, and that’s...it’s beautiful. It’s great. I’m happy for you.”

“I do.” Max finally does. She tucks up Kate’s chin, “I mean, I _do_ love Chloe. She’s my best friend. She’s one of my soulmates, but we’ve never been--you _know_ we’ve never been--”

“Maybe you should be. You two are a perfect fit.”

Max isn’t sure why it stings so much and she has to blink through sudden moisture in her eyes. She isn’t sure why Kate’s curving her fingers around a wrist to hold her closer, something deep in hazel, and it’s snowing again. Max never knows it’s snowing until Kate is around. Because suddenly white flakes of life are catching on her eyelashes and she remembers what she looked like when they met.

How Kate had hovered over her with scarves tucked around her neck and looked so concerned.

And she still looks just as beautiful, now, as she did, then.

“Max, come on, you deserve to be happy.” Kate presses, brows knitting a little like there’s a hint of pain there--a hint of something in the back of her mind--and Max steps closer.

“Kate. My heart didn’t glow when I met--” Max starts to argue, starts to tell her, for once, and Kate, surprisingly, cuts her off.

“Maybe it doesn’t have to. I...okay.” Kate’s eyes are full of moisture, now, and Max frees one of her wrists to cup her cheek, “Okay. I know this might be totally not cool to tell you, and I’m not _expecting_ anything Max, but I...I know a bit about loving someone, okay? Maybe your heart didn’t glow when you met me,” And there’s visible tears in dark eyes, snow floating down to catch in timidly-curled lashes, nose red from the cold. “But my heart did when I met you.”

“What?” Max asks, breath catching as she searches her features. It feels like she’s out in the freezing cold and just got shoved out into a burning hot spring. “You...what?”

“And I...I know you pretty well, by now. And the way you look at Chloe...maybe you’re in each other’s lives for a reason, Max. You fit together. You’re totally cute together, and I watched Chloe with Rachel and they were good for each other, but you’re better for her. And maybe God made love complicated for a reason. I know you’re in my life for a reason, soul mate or not, and I just--I want you to--”

“Kate.” Max breathes because her head is still reeling, hand pushing up from her cheek to cup the back of her head. “You think Chloe’s my soulmate? You know what, that doesn’t--this doesn’t--shit, okay, God, you’re _such a good person_.” It’s rushed out of her lungs like one word and it _hurts_ because it’s a little hard to wrap her mind around. “I don’t know if it lit when I met you.” She doesn’t give the sentence enough time to sink in, doesn’t give Kate enough time to think about it, at all.

And Max isn’t Chloe. She’s not exactly comfortable enough to strip in front of people, but when she tries to pull down the v-neck of her shirt enough to show her and that doesn’t work, she silently curses and pulls the fabric enough to showcase her very, very red heart. Her very cold, very red heart.

“Max--” And Kate looks a little pained looking at it, but she gasps when Max grabs familiar, bare fingers and raises it up to her chest. And there it is. A flash of red reacting to the touch, brilliant and shining underneath Kate’s fingers. The hand snaps from Max’s heart to her mouth, tearing hazel eyes wetter and wetter. “...what?”

“It’s you.” And now Max’s eyes are a little blurry, too. “Kate, it was always you. I...look, this already turned into a bad 90’s movie the moment I chased you out of the apartment without my shirt on--”

And there it is. A beautiful, tearful laugh through Kate’s hand. “Max.”

“--but I’m...I’m really not sure what to do about it, I was never sure what to do about it, but I’ve always sort of been...depressing, ‘Romeo + Juliet’ wanted to sweep you off your feet if I wasn’t already on the ground kind of head over heels for you since the moment I met you. I didn’t get it. Not right away. I mean, I did, but I didn’t think--I never thought--I didn’t catch onto it until my heart started. You know.”

“...you _don’t_ take subtle clues very well.” Kate notes, and her hand’s falling, and there’s this soft, beautiful, nearly brokenly hopeful smile on the blonde’s features.

“I guess I don’t.” Max laughs a little, herself, breathless, cheeks red as Kate moves forward to gently tug down her shirt. “I...I always thought it wasn’t going to be me. I always thought I was going to be on the outside--”

“You’re not on the outside.” Kate murmurs, hesitantly stepping closer, and uncovered fingers raise up to cautiously smooth along the fabric of the blonde’s scarf.

“I’m not, now.” She swallows.

“Love is a complicated thing, Max.” Kate’s eyes close, “And I...I mean, I know you love me. I know we’re friends. We’ll be friends for the rest of our lives, I can feel it, and maybe that’s what this means. That God brought us into each other’s lives for a reason.” Max thinks about Chloe in the room, the way she looked when she told her that she wouldn’t trade it for anything, and she tugs Kate closer by her scarf, tongue darting out to lick her lips. “If you don’t want to be anything more than that, then I--”

“Maybe the whole soulmate thing can be about who you choose, too.” Max whispers and her heart feels like it’s kicking up into her throat. “I think it’s always been red. But even if it wasn’t, I think--” And she tries to be as brave as Kate always claims she is, “I think I’d still choose you.”

Kate’s jaw barely trembles and fingers clench in the thin fabric of Max’s only layer. “What about Chloe?” And it’s not a question asking Max to choose. It isn’t a question about putting her first or second or any of that. Because Kate was right, she does know her pretty well, and Max knows her pretty well, too. “I’m not being a drama queen, Max.”

“I know.” Max leans forward until their noses brush and this feels important. This feels like the kind of action that has consequences. But she can’t help but think of the way Kate tucks Max’s scarf around her neck like a protective suit of armor before the brunette leaves, sometimes, if she hasn’t fully knotted it. She thinks of the way Kate settles against her chest while they watch movies. She thinks of the way Kate hums worship music in the mornings and passes out lunches to the homeless and never told Max to go to church once. She thinks of the way Kate cooked for them after Rachel left and helped draw pictures for Chloe’s now-singular room and how Kate thinks Max is her soulmate, but wanted her to be happy, anyways. She thinks of how Kate’s more of a person than Max knows how to be and she tries to imagine a world where their lives weren’t tied down by the right’s-or-wrong’s-for-you’s deemed appropriate by a heart.

She thinks what she’d do if her heart wasn’t tattooed with love like two intertwined lines, and suddenly she just kind of...knows. “I’d choose you.”

“Max.” Kate’s face crumples, then, and Max is cupping her cheeks.

“Oh, boy, I’d choose you in a heartbeat.”

“Max.” Fingers curl around her wrists, lips brushing over her palms in a way that makes her skin burn and Max leans closer until she can taste sandalwood from her neck and feel the snow on her eyelashes. A choked laugh and before Max can do it, first, Kate is tugging her closer until their lips meet. 

And on the side of a snowy street a few blocks from where they first met, there’s two faint glows of red barely visible through the haze of snow and curling fingers.

\--

Rachel still visits, from time to time, and Max stopped asking Chloe about why she keeps letting her in the door, and focuses on just being happy to see the ghost of the past. _It’s complicated_ is all Chloe ever says, squeezing Max’s hand like she knows she’ll be there for her after it, and the next time Rachel visits is after Kate’s moved the rest of her things into Max’s--their--room, eyes surveying the apartment like it’s an old friend.

Rachel is dying of laughter an hour later, head falling back to rest on Chloe’s shoulder as the oldest blonde in the room explains the sight of Max stumbling out of the apartment shirtless.

“I wasn’t--Chloe! Come on! Stop telling it like that!” Max promptly throws a nearby tissue at her. It doesn’t get very far.

“She’s, like, practically _naked_ while she’s running for the door in the middle of the snow and--”

“No way!” Rachel’s laughing. Hard. “Oh, God, _Max_?! Seriously?”

“Well I tried.” Max’s look might turn a little sheepish, then.

“She nearly tripped down the stairs because her shirt was stuck over her head.” Kate supplies and her girlfriend gives her a scandalized look. It’s a look that’s tempered by something softer when fingers gently raise up to brush through dark hair. Despite the sound of Chloe and Rachel’s _guffawing_ , Max hears her loud and clear when she continues, smile soft and loving, “I thought it was heroic.”

Both Rachel and Chloe look at them, then, like it’s just been a matter of time--like both of them know something Max never has--but she just lifts up Kate’s palm and kisses it, anyways.

“So, Max.” Chloe pipes up through the tender moment, “Want to count all the times Kate’s made you fall on your face, or…”

“Chloe.” Max argues.

“Or that time I opened the door to find you on the floor while Kate was--”

This time Kate throws a nearby wad of paper at Chloe’s head and Max just high-fives her.


End file.
